A strange Voyage
by Maddie Poppins
Summary: Emma Swan is in her early twenties and in college. She shares an apartment with a nice, if a bit shy and quirky, guy named Archie. When Archie comes in to her room one day to tell her he invented a time machine, she gets to be the second person to try it out. SwanQueen
1. Cricket

"Emma!" Her roommate burst in her bedroom and skidded to a halt in front of her, pulling up his pants that had dropped down his legs in his haste. He looked like a mad scientist with his red hair all mussed up, his glasses askew and that gleam in his eyes which even coupled with that huge grin of his was kinda creepy.

"What the fuck?" Emma cried in surprise and sat up in her bed where she had been calmly reading her favorite book. She had never seen her friend like this and was starting to wonder if she should worry for him or herself. It seemed like he had definitely lost it this time.

"I did it!" He told her, jumping around like a lunatic.

"Did what?" She said, completely lost as to what was happening. As her friend was still doing his weird victory dance and chanting "I did it! I did it!" all around her room, not answering her she shouted "Archie!"

He stopped wide-eyed with a leg still in the air. She gave him a small apologetic smile for the shouting and asked again. "What did you do Archie?"

He dropped his foot to the ground. "My machine..." He told her, suddenly growing serious "It's working!"

"What!?"

"My mach-" He started to repeat but the blonde cut him off. "Yeah I heard you, man. But are you trying to say that your TIME machine is working?"

"Yes!" Archie nodded and barely caught his glasses as they slid down his nose. "Yes, I tried it myself. It's working!"

Emma looked at him and sighed sadly. Of course. The only real friend she's managed to make and he had to turn crazy before his 30th birthday. Perfect.

"And I want you to be the second one to try it, Emma." Archie continued, not realizing that his friend did not believe him. "Come on, follow me, it's in the living room!" And with these words he ran out of her room.

"Wait, Archie I-"

"I can't believe this is happening." Emma mumbled as she followed after her red-haired friend.

"Oh my god!" The chairs were piled up in one corner of the room, the sofa had been pushed against the back wall with the table folded on top of it, and the TV on top of the whole thing and the entire living room space was taken up by a huge metal contraption which looked like it would crumble to the floor with just one gentle touch. "Are you fucking kidding me Archie?" She yelled.

A hatch opened at the top of the machine and Archie's head popped up. "Oh no, this is the real deal believe me." He told her, his wide grin still firmly in place.

"This is unbelievable..." Emma grumbled.

"I had my doubts at first too" Archie said from inside the machine, his voice having a strange resonating quality now. "But Cricket here works like a charm."

"Cricket?" Emma asked as she moved closer to the side of the machine where she could see a sort of step she supposed was used to get in.

"Oh yes. That's how I called her. Because she jumps through time, you know? She's like a cricket in a way."

"She? This thing's a she?" Emma put one foot on the step very carefully, and as apparently Cricket was sturdier than she looked, she pulled herself up and could finally see inside through the whole at the top. It seemed quite clear that it was a one-person machine, there was barely even enough room for Archie alone.

"So... What are you doing?" She'd already watched him for a good five minutes while he pushed buttons, turned on switches and encoded numbers here and there. And now it was time to try and break it to him that his "Cricket" was clearly not working.

"I'm preparing it for your trip of course." He answered a bit absently, looking at a piece of paper he'd just pulled from his pants. "Aha! Yes, that was it!" Emma watched him push on a few more buttons and suddenly he looked up at her, a triumphant smile on his face. "Emma, get your jacket."

Taken aback, she didn't question it, went into her room grabbed her red leather jacket and came back in the living room. Archie was standing next to the machine now and said "Ok, now get in and listen to me very carefully."

"Archie, no I -" She started to say, thinking it was time to stop this madness.

"Don't worry. It's perfectly safe." He pushed her up on the step and she was about to tell him that enough was enough when she thought that maybe if she did what he asked, when the machine didn't work she could show him that he had just imagined it and his Cricket was just a big scrap of metal in the middle of their living room and nothing more. So she got in and looked up at Archie with a smile.

"Ok Emma, I put in the same coordinates that I'd put for me so you will find yourself sometime during the middle ages. I'm not quite sure when I couldn't see any dates or a calendar or something when I was there. Now, I landed quite close to a village on my trip, which is how I knew it was the medieval period, but you could possibly land somewhere else. Cricket here can work at any time of day or night, in whatever environment and I'm sure she would still work even if she was abandoned for a century, but of course to be sure you should probably not stay too long. Also you can get out of Cricket, walk around, explore and everything all you want but you should try not to be seen by anybody unless you can get local clothes or something because they would probably be very freaked out by your appearance and well, you never know, they might attack you or something."

"Yeah sure, you got it man! Don't be seen and don't stay too long. Well I'm gonna get going now -" She was about to push on the start button to get this over with when Archie stopped her. "No wait!" He handed her a piece of paper "Those are the coordinates to get back..." and a small black box about the size of her thumb "And that's so you can see Cricket once you're in the past. I thought people might panic if they saw our little friend suddenly appear out of thin air so it's completely transparent outside of our time. If you hold the box you'll be able to see it though."

"Er... Thanks!" Emma said, thinking it was getting worse by the minute. His Cricket could turn invisible now? How could he even believe that? She put the piece of paper and the box in the inside pocket of her jacket and waved at her friend who closed the hatch door above her. In the dim light of the tight space she could see the start button clearly. "Well, here goes nothing." She said as she pushed the button.

The entire world turned to a blinding white and seemed to start to spin around her. Emma closed her eyes and fell down as an intense pressure suddenly dropped on her shoulders. Then just as fast as it had begun, it all stopped.

Emma opened her eyes and sat up. Her head was killing her. What sort of a machine was this? Archie was definitely gonna regret having put her through that. She opened the hatch and protecting her eyes started saying

"Well I've got a massive headache now! I hope you're satis-"

Emma never finished that sentence as she had just realized that she was standing in the middle of a forest and, seemingly, in mid-air. "It really is invisible." She whispered looking underneath her. And that's when it hit her.

"That son of a bitch built a time machine!"

* * *

 **Hi guys! I thought this up the other night, what do you think? Is it worth continuing? Let me know**


	2. Chapter 2

**I had completely forgotten about this story but a reviewer reminded me of it so I came up with another chapter. Please review and let me know what you think. Should I continue it?**

"This is unbelievable..." Emma whispered.

She was sitting in the middle of a clearing in the most beautiful forest she'd ever seen. The trees were tall and proudly showed off their leaves of striking green. The grass under her was soft and swaying quietly under the light breeze, giving off an enchanting smell. The air was so pure Emma felt almost drunk on it. And the sun was shining on the whole scene bewitching the young woman into a state of complete peacefulness.

She took off her jacket and used it as a pillow. Resting her head against it, she watched the white clouds pass in the sky. She felt her entire body relax, her limbs and the grass under her becoming almost indistinguishable. She had never felt so completely and utterly part of Nature. In this idyllic landscape nothing mattered anymore but the moment. And what a wonderful moment it was!

Just as this thought crossed her mind however, the whole scene turned somber at an incredible speed. Grey clouds rolled in, hiding the sun. The trees grew dark and threatening, their branches cracking, the grass was rough against her palms and the breeze had turned to a biting wind which was now bringing to her ears the distant sound of the thunder roaring.

Panicking, Emma sat up and that's when she heard it. A woman's scream. The desperate cry pierced Emma's heart. She froze in place, the thunder's roaring getting closer and closer. Except, Emma realized, it wasn't thunder, it was a horse. A horse galloping at breakneck pace and coming right toward her. She jumped to her feet just in time to see the horse make his way through the trees at the edge of the clearing then cross it. It was a beautiful black stallion but there was no sign of a rider anywhere near. Could the woman who had screamed had fallen from his back? Emma ran in the direction the horse had come from to help her then suddenly stopped as she heard the woman again.

"Please, stop!"

To Emma this sounded even worse than the earlier scream. This wasn't a cry. This was the hopeless request of someone who knows what is coming and can't do anything to stop it. Clenching her jaw, she moved in through the trees desperately searching for a way to stop the assault once she'd reach the woman.

Then she stopped abruptly as the woman who had cried came in view at last. But the scene was not at all what Emma had expected. The woman was hanging above the ground held around her middle by branches. Completely shocked Emma looked on as the branches squeezed the beautiful woman even tighter.

"Mother, please! I do not love him..." A tear rolled down the pale face. The branches loosened their hold a bit and a woman moved in and cupped the tear-streaked cheek. Emma couldn't see her face nor hear her words over the wind but she could see the mixture of hope, love, and despair on the young woman's face. Then, at the twirl of the older woman's hand, a purple cloud encircled them both and when it dissipated the women had vanished.

Completely unable to process what had just happened before her eyes, Emma dropped down to the ground and sat, staring at the place where the women had been just a moment ago. The thing was, however unbelievable all that scene had been what shocked her most about it was that she'd seen it before. Well she'd read about it more accurately. This was a scene from her favorite fairy tale book. She was sure of it, it was exactly how she'd pictured it. Except maybe when it came to the evil queen's face. She had never imagined her to be quite so beautiful.

Was she crazy? Maybe all this was just the fruit of her imagination. Maybe she hit her head when she got into Archie's awful contraption and her mind had come up with all that crazy stuff. It made a lot more sense than this whole thing actually being real. But if she was dreaming then how come she was still sitting in that forest with absolutely nothing happening. Shouldn't there be a unicorn eating pancakes somewhere or shouldn't she suddenly realize she was naked or have all the trees shout at her and tell her nobody loved her? Were dreams ever this calm?

This was so fucked up. Suddenly getting very uneasy Emma got up and started walking back to the "time machine" faster and faster until she was full on running by the time she reached the clearing. She needed to get in and make this all stop. Dream or not, she wasn't gonna stay here a minute longer.

As she ran into the clearing and found it completely empty Emma suddenly felt her blood run cold. Where was it? With a sigh of relief, she then remembered that "Cricket" was transparent. To see it she needed the little box which was still in her coat. Her coat which she had used as a pillow earlier and should still be in the middle of the clearing.

Unfortunately, it wasn't. As Emma felt a new wave of panic overtake her, she heard a soft giggling coming from somewhere up a tree to her right.

"Who's there?" She shouted trying to mask the fear from her voice.

A little boy's head popped out of a tree just a few feet from her.

"It's just me!" He said with a smile. He was so cute with his little dimples and his brown hair which was all mussed probably due to the tree climbing. Emma felt herself relax right away.

"Oh, err hey! Whatcha doing up there, kid?"

"I'm hiding, silly!" The boy replied with another giggle.

"Hiding, huh?" Emma looked around with a new found apprehension. "What from?"

The kid scrunched his nose and squinted his eyes apparently trying to decide if he could trust her with this kind of information.

"Bad men" He said "They were here not long ago. They found the weird red jacket that was over there" he pointed to where her _awesome_ red leather jacket had been "and then they took it and left".

"Oh that's fucking perfect!" Emma grumbled. "Listen, kid. The bad men, do you know where they went?"

"Yep." The brown-haired boy answered, popping his P.

"Okay... Well, could you tell me?"

The boy motioned for her to get closer, cupped his hands around his mouth and said in a whisper practically louder than his normal speaking voice "They were going to the palace."

"The Evil Queen's palace?"

"What?"

Oh no of course, she wasn't the evil queen yet. If Emma had indeed somehow stepped into her fairy tale book's world then the woman she had seen, the woman who was to become the evil queen, wasn't even queen yet, let alone evil.

"Sorry, I meant is it King Leopold's palace?"

"Duh!" The little boy exclaimed. Then, apparently proud of having worked it out, he added with a knowing smile. "You're not from this land, are you?"

"Hum no..." Emma admitted. "So, err, if you could tell me which way the palace is, it would really help me."

"It's that way." He pointed. "You'll quickly find a road that goes straight there. It's about a half day's walk from here."

"Great." Emma grumbled under her breath. "I better get going then. Thanks kid!"

"You're welcome!" He said with a big smile. "My name's Henry by the way."

Feeling a bit awkward Emma replied "Hum... I'm Emma." She turned around and as she was walking away added "Bye Henry!".


End file.
